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We also wonder if Megan Kelly is flirting with us. Check out the latest episode of Why Are You Like This, Wherever You Get Your Podcast, and on YouTube. People are super duper precious about their personality. Pretty much like all the leg introvert words nightmares, or played out. It seems like to me of the last five to eight years, everybody in their mama is proclaiming to be an introvert. I got a call from a listener, Ladelle, who had a really good question. It just seems like the introvert thing is a new, hot word that everyone is called onto and is clinging to, even if they don't demonstrate the qualities. And I'm just curious, is that just a personal observation or something other people are seeing and also just why? And the word is still on my timeline, even if it's not clogging it up as much as it did last year. Turns out, the concept of introverts online has major staying power, so I gave them a call back. Super crazy. I feel like we're actually homies already, because I'm the six of you so much of hearing your voice. I got this call and I was like, yeah, yeah, let's go down that rabbit hole. Ladelle is extremely outgoing, honestly, saying, and he does a good job of putting into words what being an extrovert feels like excessive solitude physically drains me. If we get snowed in in Virginia for four days, day three, I'm going somewhere. I'm going to, you know, whether it be just a grocery store, it's not even all about people all the time. This interest in personality types began the way a lot of interests do. He was dating someone who was super into it. I was in a relationship with someone who was an introvert and they would be reading this book and really like going, oh, oh my gosh. And so I'm like, what is this book? So I got the name of the book, Introverted Manage. And I didn't realize when I got it that it would teach me so much about myself. The relationship ended, but his commitment to the introverts in his life is still going strong. I may just suggest instead of hanging out for five hours, we hang out for an hour and a half, or I may text one of them under an introverted friend under the table and be like, are you good? You mentioned that the way we talk about introverts is changing. What have you noticed? How has it changed? I feel like every now and again online, a word just takes off. I was seeing people who I know who I wouldn't consider to be an introvert proclaiming that they were. And I'm like, you know, wow, like you're out every weekend like swinging from chandeliers like you're probably not an introvert. But I'm not so arrogant that, you know, I feel like I can tell anyone what their temperament is. I respect everyone's take on it, of course. So if you could ask an expert, you know, any kinds of questions about this, what are some of the things you'd ask them? Do we shift towards the introverted side of the spectrum as we age? That sounds like it would be natural maybe, but I don't know. I definitely feel like the pandemic definitely amplified it. To the point why I even hear people say crazy things like, I miss the pandemic and I'm like, do you miss being locked in the house without the freedom to move around and do things like that, that sounds extreme. I feel like society is always growing more disconnected and I kind of hate that for us. I truly believe life is a team sport. It's important to be self aware in terms of, you know, your introversion, extroversion and how you handle people so that they're eager to stick around and sustain those relationships. I'm Jacqueline Hill and this week, we're rerunning one of our favorite episodes of Explanage Me From Box. It originally published late last year and in it, we're going to get ladel some answers. What does it actually mean to be an introvert? Are we more introverted than we used to be? And is it possible to change? Would you describe yourself as an introvert or an extrovert? Neither. Oh! Can you do that? Is that legal? Yeah. This is Shannon's Hours of All On. She's a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky and she researches personality. It's a little bit of a misconception because we think that we can put ourselves into these discreet categories, but most of the things that we use to describe people are on continue off. So you can be more towards the introverted side or more towards the extroverted side, but this is a continuum with different polls. People that are more on the introverted side, they're going to need less stimulation. They're going to have less sort of energy and they're going to derive less energy from social situations whereas people on the more extroverted side are going to be more excitable, have more positivity and tend to derive a lot of energy from social situations. One of our listeners called in because he suddenly noticed so many more people identifying as introverts on social media and he wondered if it might have something to do with the pandemic. The pandemic is kind of a huge life event, right, that really changed a lot of our behavior. And you know, I would consider myself like pretty staunchly in the middle of the continuum extroverted in some situations, introverted in others. And I remember going out to dinner when we were first allowed to go out to dinner and being like, man, I got weird. Yeah. So I think like any skill, when we are out of practice, we get rusty. And so I think people may be kind of confusing, discomfort and a little rustiness with like I'm introverted. But I do think that here in the last decade or so, there's been more recognition of introverts as having qualities that are really desirable. You know what? No one talks about how freaking good introverts are at networking. It's a whole spiritual filtration system that refuses to let surface level conversations sit on the same couch as their souls. When it comes to creativity and to leadership, we need introverts doing what they do best. They tend to be more thoughtful, more measured, better listeners, right? And so the world is really, I think, set up to reinforce extroversion, you know, being the loudest person in the room, shouting your ideas. And so I think there's been kind of this like renaissance for introverts. And now people are like, oh, it's okay to identify as an introvert. I'm a proud introvert. And I think that's what we're seeing. Do we get more introverted as we age? Like, I don't know. I'm an extrovert. But I do notice more and more. I'm like, I can stay in and read a book by myself today. Yeah. That's actually a really complicated question to answer. So extroversion versus introversion, right? It can be divided up into what we think of as sub facets. So it's not just like one global quality, even though that's how we often talk about it. So one thing that does tend to change or increase on average as people age is what's called social dominance. And this is a facet of extroversion that is the tendency to be assertive and confident. On the flip side, social vitality tends to decrease. And this is like enthusiasm and energy for social situations, kind of like what you're describing. Like, I don't have the same phone while I used to have, I'm happy to read my book. But what I really want to highlight though is that these are on average. And like, nobody is really the average person. This is like when we mathematically sum everybody's kind of change in extroversion. You know, I think we have this urge to put ourselves like in these boxes, you know, like I am an extrovert or I am an introvert. You research personality. Is that how you and your colleagues think about it? So most things about people are not categories. We're not this or that. It's more of a matter of degree.
I think the way we define personality, the way we measure personality, it's really different from how people are talking about their types at a dinner party. It's really different from what you would think personality is. If you took a common personality test on the internet or through your HR office, I always say that academic personality science needs a PR person, because we're not really good at spreading the word on what personality actually is. Coming up, some personality PR. Support for the show comes from Mitt Mobile. Just because the summer is coming to a close, doesn't mean the sales are. And right now, Mitt Mobile plans are just 15 bucks a month, and that includes their unlimited plan too. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can even bring your current phone and your number. We have a colleague here at Box who uses Mitt Mobile, and they love how much they're saving. To get your wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to MittMobile.com/explainitamine. That's MittMobile.com/explainitamine. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at MittMobile.com/explainitamine. That's it, there's no catch. Upfront payments of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months. Plan required, $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra, initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Incluses up to 20 gigabyte hotspot. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See MittMobile.com. Support for the show comes from What Not. If you have a product you're passionate about, but aren't sure where to find your customers, what not might be for you. What Not is the largest dedicated live shopping platform, whether it's beauty, collectibles, electronics, luxury fashion, even cookies. Sellers are building real thriving businesses. Anyone can sell, whether your business is big, small, or yet to exist. You go live, shop products in real time, and turn what you love into real income. According to What Not, buyers spend more than an hour a day in the app. They're not just browsing. They're engaged, buying, and coming back. That's because you're not just listing products, you're building real connections with buyers. I've tried What Not. At a great time, checking out a couple of different sellers, purchasing a few items, winning a few auctions. It was a really cool and interesting way to shop, and I'll be going back. Search What Not, WHAT, AT, and OT in the App Store. You can download, and you can start selling right away. It's JQ, this is explain it to me. We're back with researchers Shannon Sowers of Alla. Basically, her job is to impact the question, what is a personality? So I always like to answer this by talking about what personality is not first. It is their essence. Their sense of humor, their tastes, their values. And that's actually not how academic psychologists define personality. Oh, so people think, oh, it's like the core of me. But really, we define personality as your characteristic or habitual way of acting and thinking. And when you think about that, it's like mental habits and behavioral habits. And those are things that we change all the time. I'm curious how you measure personality from that scientific standpoint. Most of the commercial personality tests that people have heard of that they're taking in like HR offices, they're very category-based, right? They put you into a type and that's that. What we use, what we think sort of describes personality in a much more nuanced way, is the big five or the five factor model of personality. These are sort of five overarching traits. The first one is openness and this is the degree to which you are interested in new ideas and aesthetics, philosophy, art versus folks that are more traditional. And this is how we always do it. Then you have conscientiousness, which is on a continuum with disinhibition and essentially conscientiousness is like how achievement-striving you are, how organized, how reliable, and disinhibition is more like, you know, I kind of act before I think it grew. Mm, the next is extroversion versus introversion, right? And that's the tendency to be energetic and excitable. Then there's agreeableness versus antagonism. Agribleness is how oriented you are towards other people, how empathic, how caring, how well you get along with others. The last one is neuroticism, which is on a continuum with emotional stability. And neuroticism is just your tendency to experience strong negative emotions. Do you tend to get more upset by, you know, stressors in the environment? Do you take longer to combat down? That sort of thing. I like to think about the big five, you know, if you could imagine like an audio switchboard with all the little dials that you can kind of push up and down. So you might be high in neuroticism, and you might be kind of moderate in extroversion, and you might be moderate in agreeableness, and you might be high in conscientiousness, and you might be high in openness. Let me just describe it myself. And the classic high achiever personality. Oh, man, yeah, hi, I related that. Are there limits to how we can measure or define personality? Well, there are one of the nice things about the big five is that we have tons of really, really good measures of this, right? So if you Google personality test, you know, the first two pages of hits are going to be like 16 personality use Myers Breaks. But if you Google big five personality test, there are free versions of this test where you can get this information. And these are super well validated. They actually predict outcomes like where you fall on these traits versus like these personality type tests are amount as good as predicting the career success and relationship satisfaction as you are zodiac sign. Why do you think we're so interested in knowing our personality types? Like, why do we want to put ourselves in bucket so badly? I mean, it's fun, right? Like, yeah, it is, it is. Right, it's fun. I mean, like My Myersberg type is, I don't actually know what the number is, but like colloquially it's the protagonist, which is like so fun, right? That's much more fun than being like, I'm high in neuroticism and I'm moderate in an extroversion, but knowing where you are on those different traits provides you with a lot more nuanced information. And the work that I do in my lab, so I have a research lab at the University of Kentucky, it's a treatment outcome research lab, so I develop interventions. And, you know, for the past 10 years I've been developing interventions to nudge personality traits. When you're like a type seven, okay, well, where do I start with change, right? But if I'm really high on neuroticism I want to slide that down a little bit. Okay, now I have a really clear goal. Or, you know, I'm kind of shy of the midpoint for the introversion, extroversion continuum. And I really want to go for a promotion where I have, you know, I have some leadership responsibilities and I need to be more up in front of the group. Like, how can I make those shifts to my personality? (upbeat music) And so the other big mistake that people think is that personality set in stone, you're born with it and you should just like, take the test, put yourself in the box and then you should choose partners and careers based on whatever type you are. When really, I think it should be the opposite, right? That you should identify what's important to you, what you value, what important goals you have and then figure out what are the traits that will help get you there and intentionally cultivate them. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Up next, an introvert tries to reinvent herself as an extrovert. (upbeat music) Hello everyone, it's Sean. And Noel. And we want him to take a moment to talk to you about why we make this show. We make this show 'cause we genuinely wanna help you understand what's happening in support. And why it's happening, the context. We think that this is very valuable. And Vox members help us keep making this show and they get access to some perks. Oh, let's listen Sean. First, add free listening on today's explain and all Vox podcasts, people love the Ed Free Listening. We love the Ed Free Listening. Unlimited Reading at Vox.com, people love unlimited reading. Exclusive newsletters? People love newsletters, right? It's like the new club. Vox.com/members to join. 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(upbeat music) Hey, it's JQ, we're back with "Explain It To Me," and it turns out our personality traits aren't really either or. It's more like a continuum. And where you fall on that continuum isn't set in stone. But what if you're unhappy with where you're at? Can you actually change your personality? (upbeat music) I'm Olga Hazan, and I'm a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of "Me, but Better." Olga spent an entire year attempting to do just that. So the year was 2022, and the pandemic was sort of easing up. People had started socializing again, sometimes in masks, sometimes not. But I kind of had not. I was still pretty much social distancing, pretty hardcore, and a lot of my social connections that kind of evaporated, loosened, since the pandemic had started. And I kind of just found myself a little bit lonely, honestly. And so I've been interested in this topic of personality change just through some other research and writing I had been doing, and I took this personality test that was designed by a psychologist. And it told me that I was in the, something like the 23rd percentile when it came to introversion versus extroversion. So I was an extreme introvert. And especially when it came to being friendly or cheerful. So I was very not friendly and not cheerful. - You mentioned that this was happening during the pandemic, coming off of the pandemic. Can you tell me a little bit more about how the pandemic and social distancing affected you and your introversion? - So I think it really hardened my introversion. I did pretty well at social distancing. And I kind of didn't realize how severe the introversion was getting or how much I was sort of like, I basically never need to talk to people ever again. It was like February in DC. It was raining. It was like a freezing rain. And like there were no leaves on the trees. And I just like looked outside. And I wrote on my journal, I feel like nobody really knows me. I was just like, this is bad. I feel like I'm in a gulag or something. So that's when Olga decided to take matters into her own hands. She took all that research she read for her reporting and did her own experiment. She gave herself a series of exercises. She hosted a dinner party. She talked to strangers more. And she kicked it all off by doing something only the bravest among us do. - I just wanted to rip the bandaid off into the most extreme thing possible. She signed up for an improv class. - I was terrified. That was one thing is I'm not a natural performer and I'm also not silly. So that was a challenge for me. But the great thing about improv is that not only does it make you more comfortable interacting with people, but also in doing so in a way that's not scripted at all. So like you and I are both journalists. Like before each interview, we write out our questions. You know, we go through the list and then the conversation is done and like goodbye. And I was really used to having those kinds of conversations but I wasn't used to someone saying something to me that was unexpected or asking me a question that was probing or vulnerable and or just having to like pivot in the moment through something kind of chaotic. - I imagine if you are like extremely introverted, doing improv is like, oh, this is a nightmare scenario. 'Cause even I will say I've done it before and even as an extrovert, it can be a little bit like, oh, what are we getting ourselves into? - Pretty much like all the like, introvert worst nightmares were played out every single time in improv. - So what were the final results of your experiment? Were you successful? - So an introversion in particular, my score went way up. I think it was like, it went up to like high or something or like medium high maybe, I don't know. And so the principle behind this personality change is that as you do these activities or whatever your challenge is, what are we wanna call them, you become more comfortable with it, just like with anything else training for a marathon, any other skill you wanna pick up. So you become more comfortable with talking to people and with socializing and then you kind of start to see that as part of yourself. So a lot of the questions will be like, sometimes like I enjoy talking to people or like I have fun at parties and I honestly had to answer like yes to a lot of those because I had been doing a lot of those things and I had been having fun. - Would you say that you're an extrovert now? - I think I'm a lot more extroverted than I thought. I think I maybe just wasn't this heartened introvert, this 23%, not friendly, not cheerful. I think I was sort of like taking that initial test based on how I feel when I'm about to leave the house and like Netflix and the couch are calling and not. - And there are days like that. They do exist. - But not like how I feel when I'm actually there or like afterward where I'm like, oh that was so funny with that person said or like that was so cool or that person's job is so neat. Like you don't think about those positive things that come out of social interaction. You just think about how hard it is to like go and find parking or whatever. To me it really showed how like you're not necessarily stuck with what you were given or the story that you're telling yourself about your personality traits that by kind of loosening what your definition of your personality is, you can actually kind of explore more of the world and possibly find things that are more fulfilling on the other side, even if it's not totally in line with your original version of your personality. So we've talked a lot about going from introversion to extroversion, but what do you think extroverts can learn from introverts? There are strengths to being introverted and to being contemplative and having like quiet moments to yourself and being happy, just being by yourself and spending time alone because you are going to have you know, times in your life when you are solo traveling or you know, just doing something that requires like deep thought work. Carl Jung, who's like one of the psychologists that I write about in the book, what said that there's no such thing as a pure introvert or pure extrovert. Such a person would be in the insane asylum. And you know, that's extreme, but that's sort of true is that there's definitely elements to both sides of that trait that are worthwhile. That's it for us this week. Thanks again to La Del for calling in. We want you to call in. We want your help with an upcoming episode on relationships. People have dating at fatigue and are trying to make romantic connections in person. What's your experience been like in the dating streets these days? How are you meeting people and connecting with them? Give us a call at 1-800-618-845 or send an email to
[email protected]. If you like this show, you should consider becoming a vox member. Members get a ton of exclusive perks, like a version of this podcast with no ads. And, most importantly, you help support our work. This episode was produced by Danielle Hewitt. It was edited by Jenny Lotton, fact checked by Melissa Hirsch and engineered by Patrick Boyd. Miranda Kennedy's our executive producer. I'm your host, John Blanhill. Talk to you soon. Bye. (upbeat music)
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